19-20 Gozran, 44 NC
The party is stunned for a moment at Volkov’s announcement.
”So much for wanting peace, eh?” quips Smoot.
After brief exchange, Volkov affirms that Gronk corroborates the story of Vane wanting peace, and that his hand has obviously been forced.
The collective team brainstorms for a time. The news of the invasion had been delivered through magical means and had coincided with the conquest of Westergarde. There was quite a bit of speculation about the motivations of the sudden shift in tides.
Ralben rather sheepishly admits that’s there may be an alternate reason for the assault. He tells the gathering that Delayne Muerdetta had stolen an item that belonged to him, and the Ringwielder may have detected it was no longer under his protection. After a brief sidebar with Jacob, he explains more fully.
After some considerable exposition, the following is a summary of the party’s understanding of the state of affairs:
- Delayne Muerdetta and Jacob Mengst (who showed every sign of becoming besotted with one another) are in the wind, traveling on foot to the East. It’s likely that she seeks to link up with what’s left of the Black Rose Society, as she is technically in command now that Captain Tennyson is dead. Ralben believes she is in possession of his tome.
- Ralben won’t reveal the name and nature of the tome, save that is is bound in plates of warpstone. According to Ralben, the tome was originally discovered by a Kisharan soldier named Levin who was in charge of the garrison constructing Tablenhelm Keep around the Waygate. The Ringwielders hunted him mercilessly until Ralben took possession of the tome several years later and concealed it. Ralben reveals that while the tome could not be used to destroy a Waygate, it could provide instructions on how to disable one. He’s unsure how Muerdetta came to know of its existence in the first place, much less what it imported, but it’s noted that she was always a scholar before a soldier.
- Little is known of Gideon Nell, or why he had infiltrated Volkov’s Army, though the command now has to assume all of their secrets are compromised. Jacob believes that Gideon Nell is a demon bound in service to an ancient elf named Leitus ar’Shamriel Vin. Leitus was one of the original discoverers of the Waygate, and had an early understanding of what it portends. He has since become obsessed with the arcane arts that the ancient ones used to build the gates. This quest has compelled him to hoard warpstone to use in his experiments. This was likely what drew Gideon Nell to Shara Tev’s trading post in Karpassis. The party is unsure what Nell’s mission was, and if it was to secure the Ring of Spirit, why he let it go so easily.
- Isaac Vane is almost certainly following the direct command of Aril Flambeau , the Ringwielder of Fire, to invade the North. There’s no understanding the motivations, whether due to Ralben’s tome being stolen, or the end of the civil war in the North. The assembled party agrees that ultimately, Sanorin’s unique talents will be needed to slay Flambeau, but in the near-term, the best course of action would be to establish a dialogue with Vane to understand his motivations. Volkov provides an enchanted book that will reflect anything written in it to its pair and entreats the party to deliver it to Vane. He instructs them to meet at the docks in the morning.
Upon leaving the briefing, Gidget and Faun fall into step with Sanorin, having silently decided that they’ll add to his guard. The party gathers supplies and meets up on the docks the next day, where it is revealed that Poppy Sokeldodge is the captain of the black Man’o’War that aided in the assault on Westergarde. They board the ship and head out to sea. After a time, the ship turns around and begins heading East back towards the shore, and then some magical effect takes over and the ship begins to fly.
The party soars off into the Eastern skies towards High Guard fortress.
I was half expecting people to turn on Matten immidiately. Apart from a few dry comments, though, it seemed the general feeling was that Flambeau had ordered the attack, and they seemed to agree that Vane probably honestly wanted peace. It probably helped that Gronk had, according to Volkov, confirmed that Vane really wanted peace.
Then the discussion turned to other things, like this Gideon, who had posed somehow as Diego for so long. What his goal was, for instance. Had he been after the ring all the time? It had looked that way before Vlad threw them both out of the window; Jacob Mengst was at the very least not the main target. It was clear that Sanorin and Syl knew him already; I am pretty sure one of them mentioned that he had torn one of Chumley’s arms off. With his bare hands. Yes, Chumley. Stone troll. He killed Shara and Chumley. It was pretty obvious, both from their stories and what we saw ourselves, that this guy was not your average human.
Of course, this was when Jacob Dain dropped another little tidbit of information in our lap. That Gideon might have been a demon, that he was possibly after warpstone, and that he might not be working for Flambeau at all, but for an old elf named Leitus. One who was obsessed with the gates. Of course, Flambeau wasn’t enough, now we had to add an ancient, possibly insane, elf to the mix. Two insane elves should be enough, and I was starting to wonder if all of them were more or less out of their minds. Ok, maybe not fair, but so far, I had travelled with one (Dan) who absolutely seemed to have lost his marbles. Granted, he might not be pure elven, but still. One other, we had met. The female Etu’Sari Moriel, though, to be fair, that was allegedly because of the sword she carried.
As if things weren’t complicated enough, Ralben then informed us that Jacob Mengst and Delayne Muerdetta were missing, and that Muerdetta had stolen something valuable from him. Well, we had already been told that they were missing, but I, at least, had thought that meant they were hiding away somewhere, to get some time to themselves. Instead, it seemed they had really run off, with this precious item of Ralben’s.
We really had to drag the information out of him. It seemed Muerdetta had stolen an important book from him. Ralben did not want to tell us more about the book, except that its cover was made from warpstone, and that it might help us disable the Waygate. It did answer some of our questions, but created new ones. Such as why Muerdetta would steal it, how she even knew about it, what she was going to do with it. Still a question, but possibly less of one, why would Jacob Mengst help her (I mean, why _would_ a young, relatively unexperienced man help a young woman he was clearly besotted with? Ah, young love).
Starry Night then told us that if we wanted the goblins’ help, he needed assurances that we would not slaughter them, that rather than killing them, as had happened last time, we should instead find a way to trap and imprison them. Considering how useful they had been so far, and that it wasn’t really their fault, not to mention how useful Starry Night himself had been so far, I guess it was only fair that we should at least try to find a way to keep the goblins alive, just like we would have done with, say, a group of humans we knew were under someone else’s control.
I suppose I shouldn’t have been too surprised that one of the first to speak up to support Starry Night’s request was Dan, but I was. I mean, I know I did speak up to support him, but I have always been a sucker for pleas to help, and Starry Night was basically begging for us to help prevent the extermination of his entire people.
One of the first nights after this group was assembled, Vlad read us a letter from Starry Night. It described what happened when the Waygate opened, and what happened after it was closed. From the goblins’ perspective. In hindsight, that might have been one of the reasons why I tried to keep an eye out for Starry Night. And now, now he was begging for us to agree to not wipe his people out, should the Waygate open again, and his people come once again under Kishara’s mind control. How could I _not_ support him in that?
In the end, Volkov signed that document. Yeah, it was a proper contract and all. From what I understood, the goblins would try to find and hide whatever Warpstone they could get their hands on. Of course, given their reputation, that will, if it becomes public knowledge, create an uproar with certain people. I am not sure I want to know what the dwarves are going to say to this, for instance. Luckily, that will not be my problem.
But in the end, what we would have to do was to secure and if possible hide any Warpstone we could find; find Mengst and Murietta and recover the book; meet with Vane and give him the book from Volkov; find and deal with Leitus and his Gideon demon; and kill Flambeau. And what we had was this little strange group. Yes, I know, the group that was pretty much responsible for closing the Waygate was as strange as ours, but still.
Oh, yes. One more thing. No one can tell me how old Ralben is, or how long he has been around. It seems he has always been around, an ageless historian mage with a lot of secrets. I don’t know about the others, but I certainly found that somewhat disturbing.
The next day, we picked up supplies and headed for the harbour. The ship was the large, black Man’o’War that had helped us during the attack on Westergarde. Its captain was a female halfling. Poppy Sokeldodge. Yes, her. This mission was getting stranger and stranger. And for a race that was almost extinct, there was surely a lot of halflings around us, including Gidget and Faun, the two halflings that had been with Billy, who seemed to have attached themselves to Sanorin. And, at least the ship’s crew all had some strange relationship to their hats. The bigger the better? Something like that.
We set sail, westwards at first, but fairly shortly after we set out, we turned around and started heading east. At high speed. Directly towards land. And then, we were flying.